Many Internet-based auction facilities have developed in the past several years. Through Internet-based auction facilities, potential sellers can enter information about their product or service for potential buyers to bid on. The information submitted by potential sellers is then organized and stored by the Internet-based auction facility. Potential buyers can search through the organized seller information to find products or services they wish to bid on.
Once a buyer locates an item to bid on, the buyer can compete with other buyers for the item by submitting bids during a specified auction time period. At the end of the specified auction time period, the highest bid buyer is notified and the transaction between the seller and the highest bid buyer is facilitated.
While the current Internet-based auction facility works well for some items, there are several disadvantages. For example, many items in an Internet-based auction facility have at most one bid during the specified auction time. An interested buyer must sometimes wait days for an auction to end even though his bid is the only bid received. Also, there are many potential buyers who don't like auction formats.